Owen Alderson takes center stage at a rehearsal of Zombie Prom, a middle school musical that will run Dec. 4, 5, 11, and 12 in Bromfield’s Cronin Auditorium. Other cast members from left: Tricia Brewer, Emma Sullivan, Diane LaMattina, Emma Hall, John Bakis, Dan Jackson, and Marcelle Hazoury. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)

From left: Emma Sullivan, Dan Jackson, Emma Hall, Kelly O’Shea, Danny Hayward, Jenny Watts (rear), and Therese Philippe practice a musical number from Zombie Prom.

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Thirty seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-graders at the Bromfield School are getting ready to bring a musical tale of adolescent angst and nuclear catastrophe to the school’s stage. Zombie Prom is a campy, rollicking romp through America’s atomic age and the golden age of horror comic books.

Set in the 1950s, the musical is the tale of a sweet teenage girl named Toffee (played by Emma Noyes) and her “hoodlum” boyfriend, Jonny (played by Owen Alderson). The two meet at Enrico Fermi High School—named for the father of the atomic bomb—and fall in love, but the principal, Miss Strict (Jenny Watts) intervenes, persuading the indecisive young Toffee to break up with Jonny. Tortured by the betrayal, Jonny goes to the nearby Francis Gary Powers Nuclear Power Plant and flings himself into a nuclear cooling tower.

Guilt-ridden and alone, Toffee mourns the loss of her love, until one day when Jonny returns, risen from the dead as a teenage nuclear zombie. The mass of decomposing flesh professes his love and tells Toffee that he wants her back. He plans to clean up his act, finish school, and take her to the senior prom. But Miss Strict refuses to allow “zombie scum” in her fine institution. She even threatens to cancel the senior prom if anyone is caught supporting the “cadaver’s cause.”

At the same time, word of this conflict reaches Eddie Flagrante (Danny Hayward), a slick sensationalist reporter, who loves a lost cause.

Eddie arrives at the school with his film crew to cover the story and take up the case of “zombie civil rights”—but once he arrives, we see that he and Miss Strict share a past, shrouded in an elusive mystery.

As crisis takes hold of the school, the frantic students wonder: Will Toffee take Jonny back? Will Miss Strict let Jonny come back and finish school, or will she cancel Senior Prom, ruining the most important night in the lives of the students of Enrico Fermi High?

Theater-goers will learn the answers on Dec. 4, 5, 10, and 11, at 7 p.m. Zombie Prom is directed by Martha Brooks, with music direction by Talia Mercadante, and choreography by Melissa Lynch Hoffmann. For more information call 978-456-4152, ext. 197.